Kraftwerk

Saw them on Florian's last tour - afterwards our group all felt the experience was closer to performance art than to a 'rock gig' - Ralf and Florian as Gilbert and George. So I think these appearances and little dribbles here and there of new music are very much akin to a fine artist's 'late period': - playful, repetitive, charming, self-referential - a Matisse collage - but ultimately not what their reputation will rest on.

Because I get bored of writing out long complicated posts which get one word responses. x-post

While I love electronic music that depends entirely on analogue synthesis just as much as anyone that enjoys electronic music, I have to say that I love the harder, more percussive, heavily arranged sound of mid '80s electronic music just as much. Music made on the Synclavier/Fairlight CMI/Linndrum/Emulator may not generally be perceived as being as "timeless" as the earlier music made either entirely or almost entirely using analogue synthesis, but I don't let such things trouble me as, as outmoded as that technology is in 2015, the music made with that technology still sounds far less stale to me than a lot of rock music, and undoubtedly (it goes without saying) far, far, FAR less stale to me than retro-rock Britpoppers, 21st Century landfill indie and countless rock/indie bands that use the same old cliches time and time again. Also, I happen to like the sound of the technology and the productions of that period.

I have to say that I love the harder, more percussive, heavily arranged sound of mid '80s electronic music just as much. Music made on the Synclavier/Fairlight CMI/Linndrum/Emulator

This is pretty much my favorite type of music right now, so EC is really floating my boat in that respect.

i'm essentially a fan but being a fan isn't exclusive of being a critic... like, branwell, when you say that you don't enjoy modern-day kraftwerk shows, that's an intrinsically critical response. and one that i can understand, honestly- it's like modern-day residents shows. kraftwerk were always about artifice, and if they could have played a show like this in 1976, well, they probably would have, but that inability to do so made them a better band. improved technological capabilities don't unilaterally improve a group's aesthetic capabilities.

Worth noting they were using sequencers as early as Trans-Europe Express, but they didn't tour between 76 and 81 so when they finally toured behind Computer World their live show was a very different thing than what it had been in the mid-70s but their records had already reflected those changes.

"Being A Fan" is not exclusive of being *critical*, but there is a certain stance or approach to music which is the approach of Fandom, and another stance which is Being A Critic (maybe I should just call it "Record Store Dude") which just particularly winds me up.

I am bad with words, so it's hard to express this, but to me, it's like Fandom approach is: "Electric Cafe is quite different from other Kraftwerk records, that means it's my favourite / least favourite, here's why I love it / hate it, these are the bits that are like their other records, these are the bits that are like other artists maybe" and so on and so forth, discussing that record and its discontents or pleasures within the context of loving and wanting to know more about Kraftwerk. Music Critic / Record Store Dude / ILM Nerd approach is like: "Electric Cafe is canonically Bad, this means it's the New Jersey of Kraftwerk, let's start a thread called "Every Major Band Has An Electric Cafe" where we try to shoehorn Steely Dan or Third Eye Blind records into this mould, hey, if ILM had existed in 1986, where do you think Electric Cafe would have places on its EOY list" One is performing fandom and loving a thing a bit too much; the other is treating Music as a football league. ILM, as a whole, is very accepting of the latter mode of discourse, and very unforgiving towards the former. That's what I'm carping about, when I'm complaining that ILM isn't a very good place for Fandom.

kraftwerk were always about artifice, and if they could have played a show like this in 1976, well, they probably would have

Dude, this isn't criticism, this is basically Fan Fiction.

And y'know, I *love* fan fiction, so if you wanted to write an AU fic about a Fairlight or a Powerbook loaded with Ableton falling through a rift in the SpaceTime continuum and landing in KlingKlang in 1976, I fully support you in that endeavour! (That would be brilliant, actually, because I'm imagining Ralf being all "Wass ist das?" and Wolfgang discovering it conducts electricity when he hits it with an electronic drumstick but it takes Karl prising it open and "oh no Karl, you've broken it!" and Karl, because he's 12 and he can figure out how to set the timer on Ralf's Betamax and Ralf can't, he finally gets it open and works out how to turn it on. But then Flori discovers the speech function and keeps making it say "RALF IST EINE WIENER-SCHNITZEL" in robot voices and cackling himself silly as it sputters "WIE-WIE-WIENER RALF IST EINE WIENER!" and then David Tennant and Billie Piper turn up and they're like "Guys, this is not your technology, this is not your time, can we have the shiny silver box, please, now?" but Florian won't stop trying to sample the cool noises that the TARDIS is making and... you can see where this is going.

The thing is, multi-track recording technology existed in 1975. And if they wanted to make a super-layered, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink super-slick prog record, they could have. But they didn't. They made a weird, stark, almost austere minimal record like Radioactivity. And I'm realising as I say this, that only part of that was the available technology, but part of that was a deliberate aesthetic choice that they made in the context of 1975. I think that limitations do force and increase creativity in really interesting ways. But Kraftwerk already had an aesthetic, not so much of artifice (though artifice was part of it) but of streamlining and reduction and minimalism.

That that is what I'm responding to on those records, and perhaps what I don't like in more recent shows is the addition of "Maximum" which was never part of the Kraftwerk aesthetic in the way that "Minimum" was.

Also, the production is a red herring on Electric Cafe. I recognise that that heavily gated mid-80s production is either a) something you either love or hate or b) something which is appropriate and sounds great on a Jody Watley record or an Age of Chance single, but just sounds *weird* on a Kraftwerk record, like they're wearing someone else's clothes or they've just stuck on a false moustache.

But my other complaints don't go away. It's the first record between Ralf und Florian and Tour de France Soundtracks that doesn't have a recognisable ~concept~ behind it, and it just sounds a little lost. Like a collection of beats in search of a song that never comes along. I guess a Kraftwerk record doesn't *have* to have an overarching concept to link it all together, but it does have to have those super-earwormy catchy pop songs, which just aren't there. I do love the super-abstract beat-only Kraftwerk songs on previous records, like Metal On Metal or Nummern, but for me, they work as breakdowns or super-extended riffs on Trans Europe Express or Pocket Calculator, they are best as part of a context of a whole. Electric Cafe is just the beat sections, but the pop songs they're attached to just aren't strong enough to carry off the record. They're extended dance remixes of pop singles where they forgot to write the pop single! All techno; no pop. (And the techno isn't even that great.) I walk away from every other Kraftwerk record humming something. Nothing from EC sticks in the same way.

Ok now I've fallen into the trap of "Fandom": being a boring pedant saying boring things about a boring record I don't even particularly like because I feel like I have to defend the ~favourite~. :-/

Is this the 1983 demos you lot were all talking about?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djNorx3qsEE

Sounds like the songs from Electric Cafe, but with more ~Kraftwerky~ production values?

I take it all back. It's not the production on the record, it's that the songs and melodies themselves are just kinda dull.

xp
harsh - I have the melody of Telephone Call and Sex Object stuck in my head at least once a week.
I see what you'er saying, despite really like EC, it does come off as a compilation of non-album singles or something. But then again, the overarching concept of Man-Machine is not very obvious.
On the live front, saw them 10 years ago, on the Min-Max tour and it was honestly the most awesome (quite literally) show I've ever attended. I had a blast, so at the end of the day who cares what they were fiddling with on their computers.

German Expressionist Cinema. Almost all of the songs on Man Machine (even the title of the album) hark back to Fritz Lang or the film Metropolis in some way!

(OK, not really, I kid. But humans + technology = cohesive whole is the theme there, duh)

The stuff I keep typing out and then deleting is much more about ... what it is that people *want* from a live performance?

Like, obviously, for a ton of people on this thread "perfect sound plus dazzling AV" is the recipe for an amazing experience. And for a ton of other people, it's more like "charismatic performers *performing* music that expresses their personalities in some way".

Like, for early 1970s Ralf, he was searching for performers who *could* express their personality musically:

http://endlesskraftwerk.tumblr.com/post/57997365944/what-has-changed-and-what-has-remained-one-of-the

^^^interview after he quit Kraftwerk the first time, and the reason he went back is very clear: that he couldn't find anyone better than Florian at expressing their personality through music.

The classic lineup was full of Characters. It was four people who were very charismatic and that showed in their performances. And somewhere along the line, Ralf started believing the line about Muzikarbeiters, and thinking that it didn't actually matter who performed a piece. When I think that he was right the first time, and the ability to have, and also project a distinct personality, even while playing in these theatrically constrained fashions. That was something that Karl and Wolfgang and Florian had, that these technician dudes, sorry Fritz and Henning and Technician Number 3, for all the dazzling sound and whizz-bang visuals, just do not have. That shit is Spectacle. It's entertaining, it's a full-on action movie. But it's a movie without any actors in it. If what you want from your Kraftwerk film is the characters, if you want a film with actual actors in it, it's not going to be satisfying.

I was kind of trying to write more about how the whole point of Kraftwerk, is that these are songs that have been de-peopled. The characters in Kraftwerk songs are not humans, they are cars and bicycles and data processors and nuclear power stations. Even when humans turn up, they're still somehow not *humans*; they're showroom dummies and robots and catwalk automatons for promoting consumerproducts.

But it's like Ralf thinks he can depopulate the performances, and it doesn't work. Watching 70s and early 80s Kraftwerk performances is fun because of the tension between these super-abstracted kabuki performances, and the way in which their personalities still spill out. That's the fun of the oft-posted clips of Pocket Calculator, where they come out from behind the machines, and though they're all in a uniform, and all doing "robot dances", the way they perform them is so unique and personal, even while being part of a harmonious group. Karl with his perfect face like a Stakanovite poster, and the disparity between the seriousness of his expression and the way his body jerks about like a puppet with its strings cut. Wolfgang kind of smirking at everyone with the sexual *knowingness* of the robot that is fingering your wife (sorry, joke from that other thread). Florian and his mad professor grins and the sheer kid on christmas morning joy of playing with gadgetry. The tension between group identity and individual identity makes the performance completely intriguing. To some people, *that* stuff matters in a way that perfect digital sound and whizz-bang 3D films matter to other people.

And this is not "nyeah, nyeah, authenticity blah blah, they're just miming, not the real people" because I'd happily watch Wolfgang or Florian miming all day - OR ANYONE WHO WAS A GOOD MIME - because the act that they are miming is interesting and funny.

ugh every time I post something to ILM I feel like I'm digging myself deeper into a hole but I just keep going because I'm dumb and I want to get this stuff out.

Even before they had 'proper' sequencers they could have taken a more faithful approach to the written material but live they were jamming fairly wildly up to at least '75. I mean it wasn't just about available (or otherwise) tech. It's where they were at. Or you could say they hadn't expunged their hippy jam band roots.

Branwell I'm loving yr posts on this thread, just saying

Aw, erm, thanks!

Also I just wanted to say (inspired by listening to the 40 minute Leverkusen version of Autobahn, followed by a 2015 version) that... all that technology (not to mention shitting up the bassline) and you STILL can't recreate that high little harmony on "Glitzerstrahl"?

No Glitzerstrahl, so Autobahn, AFAIC.

Yeah, and the bit where Ralf goes low on singing at the end of the "chorus", that's a "modern" change..

Branwell absolutely OTM here. It's not the same band and they don't sound remotely the same to my ears. It puzzles me that people going to see latter day Kraftwerk apparently don't notice that. All the maximalism on "Minimum - Maximum" is grotesque. Where is the minimalism? That said, I saw them on the The Mix tour and it was brilliant so I know the shows are fun. But that was 25 years ago and it felt like they were washed up even then. The stage was set up with all kinds of futuristic tech, which lit up like the bridge of the starship enterprise. When I see pics of them now, standing in line with laptops with a massive screen behind them, that looks really boring.

I'm going to see them on Sunday. stoked.

go, dance, have fun!

Dance? Have you been taking something?

I appreciate reading this discussion; and am also stoked to be going on Sunday. I have found that once I stopped playing so many shows, I was more able to have a 'fan' experience than I used to be; still, it's something that I have to put forth effort/suspend my own disbelief so that it can happen...because it's fun! I can always have artistic/moral turmoil after the fact.

I get that earlier Kraftwerk had a tension that's missing, like effortlessly achieving what used to be held together with effort and artistry lacks something. But it's honest and the music is amazing, and the shows have surprises. Instead of that tension now you get fragile human vocals over perfect machine music that sometimes erupts gorgeously. I think it's totally beautiful and inspiring.

It puzzles me that people going to see latter day Kraftwerk apparently don't notice that

Everyone does. But you don't have the choice to go see 1976 Kraftwerk.

When I see pics of them now, standing in line with laptops with a massive screen behind them, that looks really boring.

The fact that they just stand stock still while the music is exploding all around them is kind of the point? I'll stop now.

No-one goes to see Ringo Starr's Big Band and thinks they are seeing the Beatles but it's similarly one original member, some hired hands in costumes and a bunch of covers that don't sound much like the original.

I do not want to harsh the buzz of anyone going to see this band! Like, I fucking love this band (entirely too much, it's obvious) and I am not trying to diss them or represent them as terrible, just puzzling through a thing that troubles me. I am aware that there's a lot to enjoy, if you enjoy spectacle and technical precision.

I'm more wrestling with the idea of why *I* do not want to see them, now that they are touring so much. Not trying to tell other people that they should not enjoy them live!

Apart from the Glitzerstrahl. Man, that missing harmony really does feel like a betrayal of that song. Like, dude, you have got the damned harmoniser dialled up on your workstation in front of you. How hard can it be to just do the little harmony on the Glitzerstrahl.

Ralf Hütter & His All Hütter Band

Ütterly Hütterly

(Yes I know that's not how it's pronounced.)

sorry to be defensive, i'll strive for the impassive demeanor of 2015 Ralf

http://41.media.tumblr.com/29222af4417da28bb48e78c931d73fe7/tumblr_inline_nt6vkiUTqe1smthwi_250.png

I saw them in Milwaukee in '07, it was legitimately one of the best shows I've ever seen. Just throwing that out there.

I wonder if Ralf stopped touring if anyone would really care? Just send the costumes around the country with a tour manager like the Wombles used to do.

It's a nice little earner for him, as he approaches 70.

"I am bad with words, so it's hard to express this, but to me, it's like Fandom approach is: "Electric Cafe is quite different from other Kraftwerk records, that means it's my favourite / least favourite, here's why I love it / hate it, these are the bits that are like their other records, these are the bits that are like other artists maybe" and so on and so forth, discussing that record and its discontents or pleasures within the context of loving and wanting to know more about Kraftwerk. Music Critic / Record Store Dude / ILM Nerd approach is like: "Electric Cafe is canonically Bad, this means it's the New Jersey of Kraftwerk, let's start a thread called "Every Major Band Has An Electric Cafe" where we try to shoehorn Steely Dan or Third Eye Blind records into this mould, hey, if ILM had existed in 1986, where do you think Electric Cafe would have places on its EOY list" One is performing fandom and loving a thing a bit too much; the other is treating Music as a football league. ILM, as a whole, is very accepting of the latter mode of discourse, and very unforgiving towards the former. That's what I'm carping about, when I'm complaining that ILM isn't a very good place for Fandom."

hmmm. i don't think about it quite that way. the approach you talk about, which is obsessed with putting things into neat little categories and making absolute judgments of value, seems to me to be far more representative of, for instance, the rateyourmusic message boards, which are ultimately a fan project and not a critical project. because criticism as a field implies a certain level of professionalism. there are folks here who get paid for writing about music, and it's a lot harder to get paid these days for saying things like "Electric Cafe is an objectively bad record", though i'm sure dave marsh could manage it.

this tendency towards the comparative is an inevitable part of critically viewing work, sure. but another part of this whole, uh, recontextualization kick- that's what it is, recontextualization, trying to see old things in new ways, trying to group things together unexpectedly. which, if you're going to group things together, and people do this, all the time, the best way to do it is to find new ways of doing it. and if you're a fan, one of the problems is that it's a narrowing thing, that you say something like "the worst record by band x is better than 95% of all other records made". you emphasize the uniqueness of a thing, and uniqueness dies alone and unloved in the cold.

I don't care what label you put on it. But ultimately, I find it a dry and boring and utterly reductive way of approaching music. The Internet is absolutely fucking full of it, this has been utterly over-represented as the ~way to perform fanboy ism~ and it MAKES ME HATE MUSIC.

Many thanks to branwell for big multiline honestly felt and deeply thought posts of music criticism.

that was an xpost

Branwell, I think we have exact opposite tastes in Kraftwerk. I love the beat-driven stuff and have never cared much for the more synth-pop leaning stuff like "The Model" or "Computer Love" (or really synth-pop in general). The two tracks you point out, "Metal on Metal" and "Numbers, as being too beat-driven are literally my favorite Kraftwerk tracks. Radioactivity has never done a thing for me and is the one Kraftwerk album I really don't get at all. My interest in them is in the electronic beats lineage that leads to Bambaataa, Juan Atkins, et al, and I've never really cared about them or thought of them as a "pop" band.

~when I do it, it's fandom, when you do it, it's a a dry and boring and utterly reductive way of approaching music~

sssshhhhhhh

Rev, the Kraftwerk songs I like the least are Computer Love and The Model, so you're barking up the wrong tree? I like the long spacey pieces with endless motorik beats so that's how I'm hearing stuff like Metal On Metal.

The rest of you, don't you have some random 3.8 numbers or something to attach to records or some Pitchfork Reviews Reviews to grade because this thread was fun when it was just people talking about Kraftwerk.

the Kraftwerk songs I like the least are Computer Love...

O_o

Yeah, I don't know what it is with that song. My old band wanted to cover it years and years ago, and I could never get my head round it. It makes me, in an odd way, embarrassed when Ralf Hütter talks about his ~feelings~. I should totally ~relate to it~ because it is a song about a lonely, uncommunicative computer nerd who's unable to connect with other human beings. But perhaps that's why, it's too close to a wince, rather than a hug. I think he comes closer to expressing or touching my feelings when he puts his ~feels~ into metaphors like... I adore Antenna, as a love song. Computer Love is the song that is the least interesting to me on that album, when there's so much other amazing stuff going on. It's got a cute little haunting / sad melody, but the rhythm never quite comes together.

i quite liked the kraftwerk show i saw. as a fan, i was very excited to hear their music played loud. the computer graphics were eye-popping. and it was in a symphony hall, so i could sit properly.

The rest of you, don't you have some random 3.8 numbers or something to attach to records or some Pitchfork Reviews Reviews to grade because this thread was fun when it was just people talking about Kraftwerk.

― Dröhn Rock (Branwell with an N), Tuesday, 22 September 2015 06:53

Here's the picture version
http://i.imgur.com/9jWyR3M.jpg

Speaking as a fan, Computer Love is actually one of my favourite songs and I love Metal On Metal and the early Krautrock stuff too. I just wish I could own Ralf & Florian on vinyl (how do the bootleg cd's sound?)

There's a Ralf & Florian on philips vinyl for £20 on amazon marketplace. *Yoink*

Scored a really nice copy of Ralf & Florian in Texas this spring. Nearly jumped outta my pants when I saw it. :D

That picture is the exact opposite of what I'm saying?

I don't think there's such a thing as "getting Kraftwerk wrong". There are many different Kraftwerks or aspects of Kraftwerk that people respond to, and many (maybe even all? maybe even the "RONG" ones?) are valid. It's interesting that Rev hears such a different aspect to them than I do. And fascinating that they can bear both interpretations, and both visions of what the band are about are both plausible to the person listening to, and inexplicable to another person. (Why would anyone fail to be mesmerised by Radioactivity? But clearly lots of people on this thread don't connect with that album.)

I mean, I've certainly been told that I'm ~liking Kraftwerk* wrong~ (or doing ILM wrong, more usually) and sometimes it makes me hesitant to post, and sometimes I get cranky and say "well, I don't like your way, either". Whatever.

I *get* that attaching numbers to records is a thing that some people enjoy doing it, but it's kind of a boring way, to me, to interact with music. Like, why numbers? It's such a common way of interacting with music I think people don't realise how absurd it is. "This is a 3 star record" or "this is a 7.6" or "this is number 22 of 77 records we have put in an arbitrary order". Why numbers? Why not attach... colours?

Trying to think what colours I would assign to Kraftwerk records. Like, Ralf und Florian is all yellow and orange. Autobahn is duh, very obviously grey with green all round. Radioactivity is pale glowing blue. TEE is purple. Man Machine is red, Computer World is silver and Electric Cafe is that matte black that signified "hi-tech" in the 80s. It's hard to think of Tour de France soundtracks as anything other than red and blue, but it sounds more silver to me.

There! I can do arbitrary assignments to records, too.